


Trials of a Martyr

by jubilee_jawz



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Voltron, blind, klance, klangst, wound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 04:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8086345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jubilee_jawz/pseuds/jubilee_jawz
Summary: This had been the one thing that Lance was good at. His one chance to make his friends and his family proud, and he managed to fuck up yet again. “I never deserved to be the blue paladin. “





	

Lance knelt down on one knee with his rifle in his hands. He fired off rounds at three galra robots. Typical simple galra fights. Lance had no doubt in their capabilities. Team Voltron always kicked ass. The robots collapsed in a broken heap. Their boddies sparked around their faulty wire. Lance turned to survey his surroundings and found Keith locked in combat with a galra soldier. Their swords clashed togeather loudly. Lance was so caught up in grace and power os Keith's movements (how come he couldnt move like that? martial arts couldnt be that hard, he would have to look into later.) One of the man cyborgs that galra seemed to have an infinte supply of began to close in. Lance's jaw went slack. Frantically he pointed and gestured to the robot.

“Keith!” he called out for his teammate, but the red paladin was caught between a rock and a hard place. With his opponent’s sword clashing heavy against his own, Keith had no choice to but to block with his own sword. Lance could see Keith’s stance buckling under the enemy glara’s strength. Keith couldn’t possibly have noticed the cyborg with its weapon raised and Keith in its cross hairs. “Oh no,” he breathed. It was a ridiculous notion, but Lance’s body moved all on its own. 

It happened in seconds. 

The cyborg raised it weapon. Lance jumped between the gun and Keith. The cyborg pulled the trigger. 

~

There was a bright flash of purple in Keith’s peripheral vision, and then through the com in his helmet came the most blood curdling scream. It was so sudden, Keith’s legs buckled. It was a voice that had crawled straight out of the seventh gate, raw and full of pain that seemed to have no end. It was something primal, the kind of thing that erased your logical thinking and demanded emotional response. 

Keith gritted his teeth. His partner was in trouble. With his full weight, Keith pushed against their entangled swords, knocking the Galra warrior back. When he staggered, Keith delivered one strong thrust, pushing his sword into the warrior’s abdomen. There was a grotesque squelching sound when Keith pulled it out. The enemy crumpled to the ground with a thud. It was over. 

But that screaming… it never stopped. Never faded. It just kept up, getting louder and more hysteric.  
This was not the usual screeching that echoed throughout the castle ship. 

No..

It sounded _wrong_.

Lance’s back was to Keith, so he couldn’t see what is issue was. Lance dropped to his knees, curled over and rocking back and forth. Keith ran to Lance, dipping into a crouch in front of him. The guttural screams emanating from him were enough to make Keith’s blood run cold. He wrenched the blue paladin’s ruined helmet off and a pain sears up Keith’s palm so quick and only one word screams in his mind. HOT! He threw it away from them and looked at Lance who at brought his hands up to claw at his face. Keith grabbed his wrists and tried to pull them down to no avail. “Lance, you have to let me see. Let me see you face!” Behind Lance, Keith could see the other paladins running towards them. They must have heard the screams. “We have to get him to the medical pods, now!” 

“Mama….make it stop, please please…. Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo.” Whimpered.

Keith had never heard Lance cry out for his mother before, and it tugged at Keith all the more. He looked down at Lance, _“LANCE LET ME SEE YOUR FACE!”_ he screamed and yanked Lance’s hands down with all his might. Keith could actually hear the skin sizzling. Another agonizing wail ripped its way out of Lance’s throat and tears streamed down the burned blistering skin. 

All of the air was sucked out of Keith’s lungs.

Turns out quintessence can’t fix everything. Lance spent nearly two weeks in a medical pod, and while burns had healed, the damage remained. The blast from the gun had hit lance’s helmet. Miraculously, it didn’t kill him. But the visor had been destroyed and so had Lance’s eyes. His vision was gone, and no amount of alien technology could reverse that. This put a huge strain on team Voltron. Here they were in a middle of the big intergalactic war, and they couldn’t form Voltron anymore. Lance couldn’t even last 5 minutes in a trailing simulator. And it was really starting to get to him. His temper was so short now, jokes were few and far between. The ones that he did spit were so self-deprecating, his comrades couldn’t bring themselves to even feign a chuckle. 

Days passed and with every little fumble, Lance’s temper would flare. He would scream and lash out and honestly it was scary. It wasn’t Lance. Not the Lance everyone was used to, he even screamed at Hunk once. As his outbursts became more violent, Lance began to distance himself altogether. He stopped showing up for training, he didn’t make an appearance at meetings or even at meals. This lead to his team taking turns bringing food to his quarters, they tried to talk to him, to coax him out but with no avail. The door stayed closed and so they left the food in the hall, and they would return later to find the tray empty or sometimes not  
.  
It had been three weeks since the whole incident, and it was Keith’s turn to deliver dinner. 

In his hands he carried a tray with Coran’s meal of the day. Green space goop. As per usual. His footsteps echoed though the empty hall. In all reality, he hadn’t talk to Lance since he came out of the medical pod. Not full sentences anyway. Mostly just acknowledging grunts whenever Lance asked him a direct question. How do you talk to the person who saved your life and nearly died in the process themselves? 

It was sheer dumb luck his head hadn’t gotten blown off. 

Keith stopped in front of Lance’s door and gripped the tray tightly with one hand and with the other he rapped on the heavy metal. “Lance, dinner bell.” There was no response. Keith sighed heavily and knocked again, louder this time. “Come on, open up buddy.” Keith had long since grown tired of Lance’s fits. Lance was alive. Wasn’t that most important? 

The door opened and Keith’s wide eyes met Lances bare back. He had less than half expected the door to be opened.  
“Well?” Lance muttered. 

Keith stepped through the threshold. The room was a mess, dark with clothes and sheets scattered everywhere. Keith grimaced and set the try down at the desk. “Coran made the usual. Figured you might be a little hungry since you didn’t eat lunch today.” 

Lance stuck his arms out in front of him and felt around the room. 

“Do you need-“ 

_“I’m fine.”_ Lance cut him off before Keith could finish is question. Help was not something Lance ever accepted. 

Keith put his hands up defensively. Keith grabbed the desk chair and turned it around and straddled it, folding his arms over the back of it. He watched Lance grope for his dresser and opened the drawer pulling out a shirt. He shook it open and turned it over in his hands and then clumsily put it on over his head and turned around to Keith. His long arms found their way to the sleeves and he pulled his head through. Keith pushed himself and the chair out of Lance’s way before he walked back towards the door to close it, but Keith had left the tray hanging off the desk by a small margin. Enough for lance to bump it with his hip, sending the tray to the floor and spilling his dinner all over the clean shirt.  
Oops. Keith clamped a hand over his mouth quickly. His first instinct was to laugh, remembering the food fight they’d had when they first started training as paladins. Everyone had been covered with that weird goo and it had be fun. But this was not that kind of moment, and laughter was most certainly not appropriate. 

“Seriously?” 

“Lance, it’s not that bad. I’ll clean it.” 

Lance could sense the bit of amusement in Keith’s voice. He tightened his jaw and nudged his foot until he felt the bowl turned over on the ground. He scooped it up and without warning he beamed it against the far wall, it shattered into pieces. “You think this shit is funny, do ya?” 

Keith flinched back from Lance. “What the hell is wrong wi-“

“Don’t fucking laugh at me!” Lance ripped the chair away from Keith and flung it the same area as the bowl. It hit the wall and clattered to the floor. “Fuck!” Lance screamed. “Fuck all of this, Im done. Im sick to death of this! 

“Lance, look man-“Poor choice of words.

Lance whirled around and threw his arms open. “Look at what Keith? Better yet, how?” he cocked his head. “I can’t, fucking see anything anymore because I risked my life to save your ass, or did you forget?”

“Oh, so you’re going to have one of your temper tantrums?” Keith’s voice was calm, and less interested than Lance would have liked. 

At least pretend to care dude. Lance’s face flushed a deep red. “You… y-you haven’t even thanked me yet! You’ve been avoiding me like I got some kinda flesh eating disease. So damn ungrateful!” 

“Who’s the one locking himself in his room every day!” Keith spat. “You’re not my keeper Lance, I didn’t ask for your help. You’re always looking for the chance to be someone’s martyr! ” 

Lance jabbed a finger in Keith’s chest, getting all in his face. “That, that right there is what I’m talking about.” All of the rage he had pent up over the weeks had reached a crescendo. He took a deep gulp of air. “You didn’t have to ask me, Keith. I wasn’t going to sit there and watch you die! His voice cracked at the very thought. 

Fueled by mounting frustration, Keith grabbed Lance’s shoulders and pushed him roughly. “Everything you’re going though right now, it’s your fault. You didn’t think, and now you’re pissed off. But you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.” 

Something in Lance snapped. He wrapped his hands around Keith’s with a vice like grip. He squeezed until Keith was forced to let go. “Get out.” 

Keith face softened. “Lance, I-“

“I said get the fuck out of here, Keith!” Lance reaches out and grabs Keith by his shirt, his fingers curling under the collar and hurled him towards the door. “Get out.” He gave a final shove and Keith stumbled out into the hall way. Lance slammed his hand against the control panel twice before the door closed. He pressed his back to the door and slid to the ground. He wrapped his hands around his knees and pulled them to his chest to rest his forehead against them.

Keith sucked in a breath as he pushed his hair back out of his face. Damn it all. “What the hell is wrong with me?” he hissed. He paced back and forth and back and forth. Sensitivity was clearly something he needed to work on. That was not an okay thing to say. Keith scratched the back of his head and stopped. Should he get one of the others? Hunk was Lance’s best friend, if anyone would know what to do it would be him. Then again, the idea of talking to the group tank, telling him that he’d hurt, Lance’s, _his best friend_ , feelings…

That scenario didn’t play out well in Keith’s favor. 

Keith was just going to have to fix this one himself. He huffed and tilted his head back, dragging a hand down his face. He approached the door to Lance’s quarters and put his hands on the door. “Lance.” He called. Only silence. “Come on Lance, Im… I’m sorry?” he definitely didnt mean for it to come out like a question. “Lance open the door, please? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.” 

“Liar.” 

Keith slammed his fist against the door. “Damn it Lance, open up!” Lance didn’t reply. Keith turned around and sat on the floor criss cross. “Be like that if you want to Lance, but I’m not going anywhere.” He crossed his arms. “I’ll sit out here all day if I have to, but you’ll have to open the door eventually.” Keith was, in a word, stubborn. 

In the same respect, so was Lance. Hours passed. There they sat, back to door to back. Lance sobbed silently. It was all over. Lance clamped a hand over his mouth to silence his sobs. He had tried so damned hard. He tried to follow Shiro’s orders, to follow the plan. Follow the plan, don’t show off, everything would go fine. But Keith had been in danger and there had been no one else around to help him. Keith was his teammate and above all else, you make sure you have your partners back right? That was how a team worked. 

So why was he being punished? 

Anyone would have made the same choice he had, right? 

So much for being a good partner, Keith, in his own weird incapable-of-normal-human-emotional-range way had been trying to help and Lance had cursed his name to the not so distant sun and kicked him out of his room. Keith was right as much as he hated to admit it. Lance could have shot that cyborg if he really thought about it. Lance balled up his hands and press the palms to his brow and began to hit himself. “Stupid, stupid, stupid…” he uncurled his fingers. By now, he figured that Keith had already gone. He reached an arm around, feeling for something to brace himself on. He grabbed the frame of the door and pulled himself up just enough to reach the panel for the door again and hit it. The door opened and a, very startled, Keith tumbled in.

There was a silence between the boys before Lance broke into tears. He criss crossed his legs and pressed his palms to his eyes

“It’s all over Keith, I-I can’t see anything anymore. The ocean, the beach, the stars…”He sobbed. “What about my family, I’m going to forget what the look like. They don’t even know where I am and im going to go back like this? What am I supposed to tell them, Keith?” 

Keith crawled over to sit next to him and wrapped his arm around Lance’s shoulders and squeezed. “You’re not going to forget their faces, its’ going to be fine.” 

“But it’s not!” Lance blubbered. “I can’t even pilot, Blue…I’ve lost my lion. I failed.” This had been the one thing that Lance was good at. His one chance to make his friends and his family proud, and he managed to fuck up yet again. “I never deserved to be the blue paladin. “

That was it. No more. Keith took Lance’s face in his hands and tilted it upwards to stare hard into his eyes. They looked around wildly, cloudy white, not seeing anything. How Keith missed that shade of blue. His heart squeezed painfully as he took in his features. He tenderly ran his fingers over the scars that had faded to a paler shade of tan against his olive skin, but still retained that shine. Lance’s eyes fell closed. “You. Did not. Fail.” He took Lance’s hands and pressed them against his face, Lance could feel the silent tears on Keith’s cheeks and the sad smile that hung there. “Lance, I would have died if not for you. I could never thank you enough for what you did for me…” Strong arms wrapped around Keith’s shoulders, catching him off guard. Lance rested his chin on Keiths shoulder and hugged him tightly. “I couldn’t. He was going to shoot you and I-“ Lance’s voice trailed and he hugged Keith tighter.

Keith’s arms looped under Lances to hold his shoulders. “We’re going to fix this Lance, we’ll find a way.” He whispered into Lance's hair, squeezing him tighter.  


**Author's Note:**

> So this is the first fic Ive done in a super long time and I feel like i kinda crapped out at the ending but most likely ill go back and rewrite that bit. School is just kicking my ass and I really wanted to get this out.


End file.
